1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recliner assembly for an automotive seat. More specifically, the present invention relates to a disc recliner assembly having a cam for engaging a locking pawl to improve chuck performance in the disc recliner assembly.
2. Description of Related Art
Many automotive seats have a seat back whose position, relative to a seat cushion, can be altered by a vehicle occupant for comfort positioning and/or to provide access to an interior of a vehicle. Disc recliner mechanisms are commonly employed to provide relative pivotal movement between the seat back and the seat cushion and such disc recliner mechanisms often include a tooth plate and a guide plate, wherein the guide plate includes a set of pawls that can selectively interlock with the tooth plate to maintain the seat back in a desired position.
Typically, the tooth plate of the disc recliner mechanism is affixed to the seat back and the guide plate portion of the disc recliner mechanism is affixed to the seat cushion, although the mechanism can also be mounted in the opposite sense.
While such disc recliner mechanisms are well known and are widely employed, they do suffer from disadvantages. In particular, once the seat back is set in a desired locked position, any movement of the pawls resulting from excessive clearances between the pawls and guides on the guide plate will result in undesired movement of the seat back with respect to the seat base. Such undesired movement of the seat in the locked position is typically referred to as “backlash” or “chuck.”
To avoid undesired chuck, the pawls and guide plate must be formed to extremely tight tolerances, either directly when the guide plate is formed, or via additional manufacturing steps after the guide plate has been formed. As is apparent to those of skill in the art, meeting such extremely tight manufacturing tolerances or performing additional manufacturing steps both result in increased expense and a desired reduction in backlash or chuck may still not be achieved.
It is desired to have a disc recliner mechanism that has reduced or negligible chuck and which can be manufactured at a reasonable cost.